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Saturday, October 24, 2015

When the Hero Is Knocked Out of the Action

Since my fellow Whores have talked all week about their
heroes dealing with injuries in the course of a book, I decided to change it up
a bit and talk about something slightly different which befalls the hero in Escape From Zulaire. SPOILER ALERT!

Rather than being injured, Captain Tom Deverane suffers from
a chronic illness, which he has to hide from his superiors in the Sectors
Special Forces, and which motivates some of his decisions in the early
chapters. Then, at a critical moment, he’s overcome by an attack of the disease,
which forces the other characters in the book to make a number of fateful decisions.
I had to do some research to come up with my alien relapsing fever, read a lot
about malaria and dengue fever and other similar afflictions. I once came across an excellent quote from a
doctor who pointed out that the human body only has so many ways it can be
affected by anything, or to let us know we’re in trouble (paraphrasing heavily
here).

Here’s the scene from the book, in which Tom’s problem is discovered, as they’re
fleeing through the jungle on an alien planet, escaping from terrorists.

Tom lay full-length on the ground on his
back, his eyes closed. His hands rested at his sides, twitching from time to
time. Beads of sweat rolled down his temples, pain contorted his handsome face,
deep wrinkles marking his forehead. Dismay lanced through Andi like a knife as her
heart skipped a beat. Wilson sorted through the contents of the medkit. Discarded
in the grass, one used medinject already lay by his boot.

“What’s happened to him?” She fell to her
knees next to Wilson. “How could his condition deteriorate in just a few
minutes?” Reaching with one hand to touch Tom’s cheek, she was shocked to find
his skin cold under her hand. “He was talking to me and walking when I left to
find you. And now he’s unconscious?”
Andi grabbed Wilson’s sleeve and tugged on it to make him look at her. “How can
that be?”

“Bhengola fever.” The sergeant’s lean
frame was tense, his shoulders hunched. He wouldn’t face her. The vein at the
side of his throat throbbed as he rummaged through the medical supplies. “The
captain gets these attacks from time to time. We were hopin’ to get back to the
capital before the next one hit. You know of any local remedies?”

“Bhengola fever?” Andi covered her mouth
with both hands and gasped. “Did I hear you correctly? Bhengola?” Wilson nodded once. Chewing her lower lip, she ran one
hand through her hair. “He never caught it on Zulaire. We don’t have that here.”

“He’s had it for years, ever since an
assign­ment on Panamilla 2,” the sergeant said. “It ain’t a contagious thing,
not after the first attack has passed, thank the Lords of Space.”

“Isn’t bhengola usually fatal?” Stepping
backward, Latvik swallowed nervously and glanced around, probably to see how
everyone else was reacting.

“Can be over time,” Wilson confirmed. “Attacks
get more intense. Not more frequent. They’re pretty predictable, as a rule. We
carry off-the-books doses of aliquinalone on every mission.”

“Off the books?” Andi repeated the phrase softly, a question
in her voice. Does he mean illegal?

Wilson shot a hard glance at her. “Soldiers
with bhengola fever get mustered out, ma’am. No ifs, ands or buts. No cure, you
know? And the military is all Captain Deverane has. We’ve used most of the
quine we brought because we never expected to be stuck here so long. I haven’t
been able to get more on the black market, although I might have a shipment
waitin’ when we get back.”

How
can he be so matter of fact about admitting to black market activity in front
of all these witnesses?
Andi felt the blood pounding in her temples. Trying to will away a headache, she
rubbed her forehead.

“So do you know of anythin’ local that
might help or not?” Wilson’s face was
pugnacious, jaw jutting, eyebrows drawn together. He gathered up the discarded
injects and stowed them in a side pouch of the pack.

She’d
studied the symptoms of the major interplanetary infectious diseases one semester
at the Loxton Academy. Often the agent on an isolated planet would be the only
medical resource for the outworld population and, hence, had to have
rudimentary knowledge. Why didn’t I pay
more attention in that damn class? She summoned her vague memories of the
lecture on chronic, relaps­ing fevers, including bhengola. “Caused by a
parasite. Symptoms include fever, chills…”

“Convulsions—it’s an ugly disease, all
right,” Wilson said. “The bhengola parasite dies off in the human body after
the first cycle of infection, but enough of its loose genetic material remains
in the lymphatic system to do the recurrent damage. That’s what makes it
incurable.” Having found the medinject he was searching for, he held it to the
sun­light. “Last one. And one is not
goin’ to be enough.”

He’s
right. Bhengola requires around-the-clock drugs to get safely through an
incident. Closing her eyes
for a second, Andi tried to remember the pertinent section of the Loxton medical-training
material. The few facts that came to mind weren’t reassuring.

“He’ll need careful nursing to survive,do you agree?” Rahuna’s head was tilted
as he regarded the sergeant. Stroking his chin, the cleric seemed thoughtful.

“Yes.” Wilson jabbed the second inject­able
into the captain’s upper arm, rubbing the spot to work the medication into the
muscle. “This buys us some time.” Rolling Tom’s sleeve down, he sat back on his
heels, hands resting on his knees. Watching his patient relax under the drug’s
influence, the sergeant’s face remained set in grim lines. “Better but
temporary. He won’t regain consciousness until the entire bhengola cycle is
over.”

“How long?” Andi was unable to remember
the exact course of the symptoms. A week?
Two weeks?

“Could be three or four days, ma’am. Maybe
longer, with no quine.”

“Have you the map handy?” Rahuna held out one hand. “We can’t care
for him in the open elements, Sergeant. I believe there may be a safe haven we
can reach by morning, if we walk through the night, and if Sanenre chooses to
smile on this effort….”

Best Selling Science Fiction & Paranormal Romance author and “SciFi Encounters” columnist for the USA Today Happily Ever After blog, Veronica Scott grew up in a house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved ancient history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in everything.